In the early 1990s, a
brood of Scottish glaciers advanced south across the border into
England, their relentless forward creep bolstered by a current of
cold air emanating from a new wave of cool Glaswegian bands; Primal
Scream, Del Amitri, and Deacon Blue, to name but three.
The glaciers were
immediately a point of interest to an upcoming generation of bands
signed to independent labels, who were fixated on the sedimentary
deposits left behind by the icy behemoths.
One of the first bands to
visit the glaciers were the bi-curious-skag-glam ensemble, Suede.
“Since the late 1950s
glacial expansion has heralded sea changes in the music industry,”
recalls guitarist, Bernard Butler.
“We drove to the nearest
glacier in Mat Osman's Renault. Brett (lead singer, Brett Anderson)
sustained serious frostbite after he pressed his buttocks against the
ice, with just a thin layer of Terylene to protect his bare flesh. At
early Suede shows, he was continually slapping his own arse in an
attempt to drive warmth back into his butt cheeks and rekindle the
circulation.”
Another band to take
advantage of the invading glaciers were Blur, who were on the back
foot following an indifferent reception to their debut LP, Leisure.
One draft of the icy water left frontman, Damon Albarn, talking like
a cockney whelk vendor for years afterwards.
As Britpop gathered
momentum, the glaciers were embraced, sometimes literally, by a
second wave of artists, among them Gene lead singer, Martin Rossiter:
“Beside the glowing
display of a vandalised cash machine, I tenderly kissed the finger of
a Scottish glacier that had extended some way along a rowdy
provincial high-street. It made me question my sexuality for years
after, and informed our best records.”
Even seasoned old timers
were not immune to the charms of the glaciers. Pulp frontman, Jarvis
Cocker claimed to have written Disco 2000 after imbibing the
cold water, filtered through a cardigan that had once belonged to an
unrequited love, while mentally picturing three flying mallard duck
ornaments, scaling the floral wallpaper of a front room in a 1960s
terrace.
Not everyone welcomed the
Scottish invasion. Liam Gallagher of Oasis notoriety berated an
encroaching glacier as “a fookin' ice cube in a kilt that doesn't
know a single Beatles song” and offered to fight it. Years later
his brother, Noel, admitted to looking at photos of the glaciers
online, but stopped short of visiting in person, fearing that any spark of inspiration might increase his band's plodding tempo or
somehow harm his ability to repurpose tunes written by other people.
Others were more
idealogical in their objections, as Peter
Kimpton, formerly of Hut records, recounts:
“Luke Haines, then of
The Auteurs, took to the pages of the NME to praise the 'superior'
European glaciers, which he claimed were dyed red with the blood of
radical Marxist terrorist groups who had operated during the 1970s.
He once told me that the red ice was a cultural incendiary that had
inspired pop revolutionaries such as Kim Wilde, Jaki Graham and
Bananarama to subvert the pop landscape of the 1980s, though I am not
sure this is strictly true. Ultimately, Luke's refusal to embrace the
cool Scottish glaciers is what kept his Unsolved Child Murder
EP from topping the charts and its parent album, After Murder
Park, from cleaning up at the Brit Awards that year. Deep down I
think he still regrets his decision.”
As Britpop ambled towards
a premature death in the snug bar of dismal Camden drinking dive, The
Good Mixer, a slew of opportunist nearly-bands, among them Menswear,
Heavy Stereo and Fluffy, who couldn't be arsed to visit the glaciers,
instead consumed Scottish ice shavings diluted in north London tap
water. The impact this had on the quality of the music was
predictably disastrous.
By the late 1990s, the
glaciers that had defined a musical generation were forced into a
timid retreat; the likes of Belle and Sebastian and The Yummy Fur
causing the proud Celtic ice to melt from embarrassment into fey
streams that were later culverted in pipes made from novelty
hair-slides and twee friendship bracelets.
Matt, who was the drummer
in Dodgy, or possibly Gene, recalls:
“At its peak Britpop
embodied the pristine clarity that one sees in a top a quality lager
- the kind where they stick a wedge of lime in the bottle neck. At
the end, the music possessed the stodgy consistency of a fry-up. It
still looked good on paper, or if you were in A&R for a major
record company and had just snorted a massive line of coke, but it
caused a blockage in the second-hand racks of record shops that still
hasn't been cleared.
“Fortunately I invested
all my royalties in red Saharan sand, which is going to inspire the
next big music scene. I've got three tons of it stored in a lock up
in Tooting if you want to buy any.”
